Client: Carhartt
Services: Paid Social Strategy, Creative Strategy and Development, Media Planning and Buying, Audience Strategy, Campaign Optimization, Measurement and Analysis
Overview and Challenges:
Carhartt, a global premium workwear brand, partnered with January Digital to introduce Crafted, a limited-run capsule celebrating the heritage craftsmanship, durability, and innovation behind one of the brand’s milestone products. With the collection not yet available for purchase, the campaign needed to build early excitement, educate a new generation of shoppers on Carhartt’s authentic manufacturing story, and convert that interest into D2C revenue and new-customer growth.
January Digital developed a full-funnel paid social strategy that treated the launch as two connected creative waves rather than one static campaign. The first wave used heritage-forward storytelling to introduce the capsule and generate demand, while the second shifted toward product-led acquisition and sales creative designed to convert the audiences created during the awareness phase. Across both waves, January Digital built more than 30 creative executions spanning four messaging angles, six visual formats, eight headline tactics, and four distinct audience personas.
Goals:
- Build early awareness and excitement for the Crafted capsule before its release.
- Introduce younger audiences to Carhartt’s heritage, craftsmanship, quality, and community.
- Convert campaign interest into measurable D2C revenue and new-customer growth.
- Create a connected paid social journey from initial storytelling through product purchase.
- Identify the creative messages, formats, and visual approaches that most effectively moved audiences through the funnel.
Our Work:
- Designed a Connected Full-Funnel Launch: January Digital structured Crafted across two creative waves, using heritage-forward storytelling to build anticipation before shifting to product-focused messaging that converted demand at launch.
- Built a Scalable Creative Testing Engine: The team developed more than 30 executions across four messaging angles, six visual formats, and eight headline tactics, all mapped to Carhartt’s four priority personas.
- Aligned Creative With the Media Journey: Prospecting introduced new audiences to the capsule through heritage and durability messaging, while retargeting used product-forward creative to move engaged audiences toward purchase.
- Turned Creative Insights Into Performance: January Digital analyzed results throughout the activation and leaned into the teaser messaging, high-production video, and close-up product details generating the strongest engagement, new-user growth, and sales.
Results and Business Impact:
- Delivered Carhartt’s most successful flywheel new-product launch activation to date.
- Drove the strongest click-through rates of the activation through teaser and reminder creative, coinciding with a visible increase in loyalty sign-ups.
- Exceeded video completion and incremental return benchmarks through heritage-led awareness creative.
- Generated the highest volume of new users through creative highlighting the capsule’s stitching, construction, and craftsmanship.
- Delivered the campaign’s strongest paid social return during the collection launch.
- Converted story-led awareness into product demand, new-customer acquisition, and sell-through for the limited-run capsule.
